Between Flashes of Lightning
A little more than ten years ago, on my first long-term aid deployment in South Sudan, I helped evacuate a camp of around 4,000 people who had already been displaced by conflict and ended up in an area at risk of flooding. Rainy season was already well underway, but one night, about halfway through the evacuation, a huge storm broke, and in the flashes of lightning I saw a strange figure standing over my bed, a stag with the face of a man, but with exposed muscles like an anatomical model.
Read MoreMatilda Molesworth
One thing I really enjoy is face-to-face game nights. Zoom calls and Roll20 and DND Beyond are great, and I’ve had a lot of fun with them as a player and DM, but I much prefer getting a group of friends together, eating some snacks, maybe having a couple of drinks* and rolling some dice. And after years of being put of by the idea of “doing voices” my wife has agreed to join a D&D campaign.
Read MoreOfficio Assassinorum
Every miniature painter has a pile of shame (or more optimistically, a pile of opportunity). Mine probably isn’t any worse than anybody else’s – I don’t buy a lot of boxed sets, because I know I’m a slow painter and I don’t need specific models for wargaming. But over the years I’ve bought a lot of third party stuff, or specific older miniatures from eBay, so when I go into a hobby shop it’s more often to pick up painting supplies than new miniatures. My new project offers new possibility, so while I was in town last week I decided to pick up a miniature in person.
Read MoreGalactic Relief Imperial Expeditionary Force (G.R.I.E.F.)
I’ve not been active on this blog for a while (18 months). There’s been a lot going on – family crises, renovating my new house, organisational restructure at work, and slow progress on my PhD. I’ve tried over the last few months to make more time for my wellbeing, and part of that means doing more artwork*. I haven’t finished any of my ongoing projects, but I have done enough to justify starting a new one. So it’s finally time to tackle Games Workshop’s flagship product. It is the year M3.025 and after more than three decades collecting and painting miniatures, I have painted my first Warhammer 40K Space Marine.
Read MoreJetbike Jackal
A short post this week – just one miniature which I finished at the very end of 2022 (but which had been half-painted on my hobby table for a few months before that). It’s another reinforcement for my genestealer cult, Tertii Imperatoris Cultus, and my third limited edition mounted hybrid.
Read MoreThese Seem Familiar…
After last week’s modern genestealers, I’m back to familiar territory (see what I did there?) this week with two old genestealer cult magi and their tiny psychic shadows. I painted all of these over Christmas 2022 and January 2023, choosing them partly for speed – the familiars especially were quite quick to paint, taking less than a day each – and partly for their quirky, old-school charm. So without further ado, on to the miniatures:
Read MoreHocus Locus
I’ve had a few difficult months – successive family emergencies, jury service, a new job, and (touch wood) soon I’ll be moving house. So there hasn’t been much hobby time recently, and the thought of sitting down and writing has filled me with existential dread. I did, however, have a productive couple of months in December and January, focused entirely on my genestealer coven, Tertii Imperatoris Cultus.
Read MoreThe Dead Will Walk My Blog
Continuing to upload some old (2021) photographs of even older (circa 1986-1988) miniatures – more Night Horrors for my collection, which I’ve been working on – in an on-and-off way – for about 20 years. I have about half of them, and they’re getting harder to find. Like my Chaos Beastmen, Hippogryph and Zoat from a couple of weeks ago, I painted these about a year ago, then completely forgot to upload them.
Read MoreAnd My Axe
If you’re one of my handful of regular readers you’ll know that I mostly blog about old-school fantasy and sci fi miniatures, interspersed with very occasional pen-and-ink drawings of creatures from folklore and mythology. It’s probably no major surprise that someone who’s into dragons, drawing, and dwarfs would also be interested in traditional crafts, though – and that’s my topic for today.
Read MoreThe Hippogryph
Begin, my flute, with me Maenalian lays.
Virgil, Eclogue VIII
Nysa to Mopsus given! what may not then
We lovers look for? soon shall we see mate
Griffins with mares, and in the coming age
Shy deer and hounds together come to drink
With the head and wings of an eagle, forequarters of a lion, and hindquarters and tail of a horse, the hippogryph is (perhaps surprisingly) not a creature from myth or heraldry, but a somewhat more modern creation. Rather, the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto was the first to describe the hippogriff, in his 1516 epic poem Orlando Furioso.
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Shin High Terror! 